edit: I changed the title of this post so that it would hopefully be less confusing to some.
This is a quick note to everyone to say that I ran into the recent WMF exploit while browsing through Google image searches. I simply clicked on the image as I normally would and suddenly Avast anti-virus popped up with its virus warning. I had a brief moment of confusion before I realized that the problem was an exploited WMF file.
A very close call.
I use the Firefox browser so this was not an exploit targetted specifically to IE. I am not certain if the file downloaded and Avast caught it after that, or if it loaded into the web page and that’s where it triggered my AV. Thankfully Avast has a web shield as part of its suit so I was protected either way.
Be very careful while browsing through a Google image search. Obviously, patch your boxes ASAP.
Avast Anti-Virus Website - Free for home use.
~Mysk
Technorati Tags: GIS, Google Image Search, WMF exploit
January 9th, 2006 at Jan 09, 06 | 2:06 am
To clearify a bit, the web site that loaded after I clicked on the image was taking advantage of the WMF exploit. The problem did not exist in the image that was displayed in a thumbnail in the GIS.
The page loaded, and bam, there it was.
I do not know which website it was. I promptly closed the browser window after choosing the delete option in the AV software.